Afghanistan is the country where average electricity consumption per capita was about the lowest in the world in 2001; it is even lower now ten years on, in 2012.

Average oil consumption per capita was about the lowest in the world in 2001; it is lower yet in 2012.

2001

Population =  25,838,797

Electricity Consumption = 20  kWh(e)/year/capita
Always-on power use equivalent = 2.3 watts/capita average
%(US) = 0.16%

Oil consumption = 2.19 M bbl/year.
Oil consumption = 0.08 bbl/yr/capita
%(US) = 0.3%

2011

Population =  29,835,392

Electricity Consumption =231.1 million kWh / 29,835,392 = 7.75 kWh(e)/year/capita
Always-on power use equivalent = 0.9 watts/capita average = 40% of 2001
%(US) = 0.06% or less than one tenth of one percent.

Oil consumption =  = 4,800 * 365 = 1.75 M bbl/year.
Oil consumption = 0.06 bbl/yr/capita = 75% of 2001
%(US) = 0.2%

Energy conservation has been taken to a whole new level in Afghanistan, with greater than 50% reduction in just 10 years, a testimony to American diplomacy.

Afghanistan has the second highest rate of infant mortality and second lowest life expectancy of any country, above only Angola.

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Part 2: Solar Energy

Imagine what might have happened if the USA had invested a mere $1B in delivering solar panels to Afghanistan. Putting that amount in perspective, the cost of war in Afghanistan has been about $500 billion as of January 2012 and the war costs $300 million a day according to the Pentagon.

Let's use $3/watt as the price of solar. (Panels alone are now selling well below $1.50/watt and some complete large utility-scale systems are at or near that $3/watt price.)

$1B ÷ $3/watt = 333 megawatt, ÷  29,835,392 people = 11 watts/capita. Multiply this by 5 hrs equivalent production per 24 hour day (21%) and the result is 11 watts*21%= 2.3 watts/capita, the same as was available in 2001.

Conclusion: A timely investment of $1 Billion in solar panels in Afghanistan in 2001 would have doubled electricity production per capita in Afghanistan. The same investment today would increase electricity production by 250%.

Would Afghanistan have the third lowest literacy rate in the world if electricity were available to its people?

I learned a new phrase a few days ago, "drop-in fuels." Leave the fuel-hogging devices all the same -- ask no questions about efficiency -- and concoct a new fuel to keep feeding the hogs. (On small islands in ancient Polynesia, it was discovered that hogs were competing for the same food as humans, and they were exterminated. Oh, that we could learn such lessons from our ancestors.)

The military is looking for a way to fuel jets, tanks, personnel carriers, etc., without oil, and the politicians are providing the rhetoric to suspend the laws of physics until they get re-elected.

Just as with the flawed notion of "shovel ready," we have institutionalized business-as-usual (BAU) remedies which have no future. Rebuilding America, fixing our infrastructure, etc., is all about constructing stranded assets -- artifacts of the age of oil which will last 50-100-200 years longer than the fuel that is needed to operate them. Pity. 

What is the alternative?

• Simultaneously with putting solar panels on our roofs, we must swap out our incandescent bulbs and put in LEDs that use 10% as much energy. The same goes for the efficiency of refrigerators and washing machines. We can do better.
  
• In the haste to convert our cars to electric propulsion...
  • Did anyone notice that the car itself is only about 1% efficient? (Most of the fuel is used to move metal. We use a ton of metal to move a person!)
    
  • With help from other 2 & 4 wheeled contraptions, the car kills a million people worldwide every year and maimes countless others.
  • The electric vehicle uses as much in materials as a conventional car -- or more. There are no savings in materials.
    
  We did not speed up the horse by feeding it on the newly discovered fuel, kerosene. We created the horseless carriage. As the horseless carriage scaled up, we didn't notice its limitations. We now know how to achieve mobility without oil, and we can solve the other flaws of our transportation system at the same time. Getting off oil is liberating, not confining.

If we do all these things and more, we won't be needing the over-powered military machinery which is being used mostly to protect our sources of oil. 

We have a unique opportunity in the context of peak oil to redesign our infrastructure, to transform personal transport to 100% renewables -- and while we are at it, eliminate the fundamental flaws in our present system.

First principles:

• grade separation (put fast-moving vehicles above pedestrians and bicyclists with podcars or below with subways),
  
• automated on fixed guideways,
  
• dispatchable at will, not scheduled,
  
• solar powered,
  
• light weight, aerodynamic,
  
• consuming less than 100 watt-hours per vehicle-km.

You don't know how to do that? If you jettison the oil, you will be able to figure it out. Don't leave it to future generations to struggle in an oil-depleted world. It is time for our generation to become responsible. Let's not kick the can down the road to the next generation.

Based on a series of articles in the New York Times, the headlines and blogs this week are asking, "Is Shale Gas A Ponzi Scheme?"

The author questions the long-term reality of shale gas production and especially the financial underpinnings. Critics charge that the articles were poorly written or that the author has an agenda. Both sides are dancing around, talking about prices and debating the facts about reserves. Activists are rightfully worried about the environmental impacts of the new method of "fracking" (fracturing) shale formations to extract natural gas.

But neither side is asking the fundamental question:

What are we going to do when we run out of tricks to extract more fossil fuels?!

We are fracking our future.

Is there anyone out there who cares about our children?

Someone out there cares about being maligned by the press: Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy -- a company which was taken to task in the New York Times article. He offered these assurances to his employees and encouraged them to forward his message to the world:

In summary, you work for a great company and a great industry that is changing our country (and someday our world), much for the better. ... Again, thank you for all your hard work in building our company and in delivering to all Americans a brighter future through more affordable energy, more American energy, more clean energy and more job and wealth creation. ... we will now re-double our efforts to educate as many people as possible so that they may know the truth from us rather than distortions and dishonesty from others.

We hope that every Chesapeake employee can be part of our public education outreach.  ... You can do this by talking to your families, friends and others ... about the kind of company you work for and the integrity of what we do every day for our shareholders, our communities, our states, our nation, our economy and our environment. ..

Everyone, in other words, except the unborn. At one point, burning fossil fuels was arguably a rational thing to do. But we've passed the point of diminishing returns. Aubrey McCLendon thinks that burning our furniture to keep warm over the winter is wealth creation. He has company. I saw this in a discussion group:

"I disagree that we are foisting any challenges on future generations ....

A couple paragraphs later the same author wrote...

"I do not envision any ... disruptions for at least a century. Perhaps even two or three. By then, I think we can trust our great-grandchildren to have solved these problems.

I wouldn't know how to make this up. He didn't even see the irony: "Trusting" our great-grandchildren to meet their needs without the benefit of oil [plastics...], natural gas [fertilizer, glass...] or coal [steel, cement...].No, kids, that's right. We burned it all up! Just google "solve these problems" and you will find everything you need to rebuild the depleted world we left for you.

Our society's challenges extend beyond finding cheap and abundant sources of natural gas to make fertilizer and keep the lights on. The critical shift we need is to build awareness, to invest in our children's future by finding a pathway to energy self-reliance, not by extracting more of a finite resource.

It can be called intergenerational equity. Big words, simple Boy Scout concept: Leave the campground better than you found it. (Don't burn the picnic tables!)